Wiggins, Mississippi high school noose incident another blow to state image

President of the Stone County branch of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, Rev. Robert James, right, talks with Wiggins City Police Officer, Cpl. Thomas Reynolds in front of the Stone County Courthouse in Wiggins, Miss., Monday, Oct. 24, 2016.

“No child should be walking down the hall or in a locker room and be accosted with a noose around their neck,” state NAACP President Derrick Johnson said during a news conference in Wiggins. “This is 2016, not 1916. This is America. This is a place where children should go to school and feel safe in their environment.”

Hollis and Stacey Payton, parents of the alleged victim, attended the news conference but didn’t speak. Their son, an unnamed sophomore, wasn’t present.

The NAACP said the incident happened during a break in football practice and that the noose was “yanked backward” while on the student’s neck.

Johnson wouldn’t say whether the noose left marks. State NAACP spokeswoman Ayana Kinnel said the family indicated the student returned to practice after the incident.

Stone High has about 800 students, about a quarter of whom are black, according to state figures. The school is the only public high school in the 18,000-resident county.

Names of the students alleged to have assaulted the Paytons’ son weren’t immediately released.

Wiggins football coach John Feaster, who is black, told the Sun Herald newspaper that one of the white students involved was a football player who was kicked off the team as soon as school officials were able to pinpoint who was involved.

He said he feels “terrible” for the victim, “a tough kid who’s hanging in there.”

“He knows I love him and his teammates love him and the coaching staff loves him and he isn’t going to be treated any differently,” Feaster told the Sun Herald. “He’s one of my favorite kids on this team.”

Stone County Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Boggs said officials believe something close to what the Paytons described did happen and he’s still investigating. He said all the students involved are younger than 17 and he expects any charges would be filed in youth court, where records are closed to the public.

“It’s probably one of the hardest cases I’ll ever handle in my career, because of the nature of it,” said Boggs, who is black. “Have I ever had to deal with something like this? No, not from a high school.”

Johnson said he wants the teenagers charged as adults, as Mississippi law allows in some cases for children older than 13 and younger than 18. Johnson cited federal prosecutions of young people from Rankin County for hate crimes following the 2011 death of a black man run down in the parking lot of Jackson motel as an example of what federal involvement could bring. Most of those people were charged as adults. It turned out in that incident that a group of young white men and women had periodically roamed the city that spring, attacking African Americans at random, and police either never heard about it or dismissed it.

“There is absolutely a role for federal law enforcement,” Johnson said.

Johnson said Stacey Payton was advised against filing a police report because the father of one of the alleged assailants is a former law enforcement officer. Boggs said he talked to Stacey Payton and that’s not true. He said he told her that pursuing criminal charges could result in hard feelings among students that could make her son’s life more difficult at school.

Stone County Superintendent Inita Owen, in a statement to CBS Biloxi affiliate WLOX-TV, said she wouldn’t “address a matter of student discipline in the press.”

“I can assure everyone that the Stone County School District takes all matters involving students very seriously and will do everything within its power to make sure that all policies and procedures were adhered to and that all of its students have a safe place to receive an education,” Owen said.

WLOX reports that, according to the Stone High Student Handbook, the superintendent has the authority to expel any students who commits an act of violence on campus.

Johnson said the Paytons have received no official word about punishments from school officials. He said school district policy calls for immediate expulsion of students who commit assault.

Carissa Bolden of Wiggins, the mother of a middle school student, attended the NAACP news conference Monday and said white students have been flying the Mississippi flag from their vehicles. The upper left corner of the state flag used since 1894 has the Confederate battle emblem - a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. Bolden said she sees a connection between the flag and the noose incident.

“I feel like it escalated from them allowing kids to bring Confederate flags” to school, Bolden said.